Girls with a Migration Background in Italian Schools and Social Services. How Pedagogical Research can support Educational Challenges

If social inquiry should have a transformative goal on social reality, it is an even stronger requirement for critical education research related to disempowered groups in a specific social context, whose purpose is at the same time exploratory, emancipatory, technical and political. Among several emerging issues, two complex processes concern Italian pedagogues and practitioners interested in intersectionality and gender-based or ethnic differences: the growing multiculturalisation of territories goes hand in hand with a revamped wave of racism and xenophobia, while the rise of gender equality fails to reduce the still concerning level of sexual discrimination. A potentially-at-risk population are young women with a migration background, cast in the middle of this flexible situation of emancipation and discrimination. These women have to constantly re-affirm their multiple identities, juggling with different cultural expectations and racialized gender models. Given that education is a powerful opportunity against harassment and discrimination, Pedagogy – social, gender and intercultural pedagogy in particular - has both theoretical and practical responsibilities towards the upbringing of new generations and particularly that of those girls. These responsibilities variate from granting safety and justice in all sorts of educational services to exploring their patterns of life and taking them into account in order to plan educational interventions. This proposal comes from an ongoing doctoral research in Social Pedagogy, based on the interaction with 54 girls from various backgrounds and their teachers and educators in Italian high schools and educational services. The study aims to be transformative in a threefold way. First and foremost, towards the girls thanks to the election of the focus group as methodological tool, which can stimulate a better awareness around their gender and ethnic identity and more in general around their life choices, enhancing a better comprehension of the dynamics they are cast in and the formation of a sense of community. Secondly the study would provide professionals who are directly in contact with these girls with a better knowledge of this segment of population, in these days so strongly represented in educational services; furthermore, the study should provide the whole educational system with suggestions in order to improve educational planning and professionals' training. Finally, the study aims at creating a deeper awareness in Italian society towards a phenomenon that is still widely underestimated, giving voice and space to a potentially marginalized group and finally contributing to the promotion of respect for differences and for individual rights.